General Goals With Details And Post-Production

When post-producing images, it’s easy to go over-the-top and end up with photos that may have a little too much contrast, too much color, or a number of other issues. How the finished product should look is subjective, of course, but it helps to set general guidelines in place in order to help make your images look their best.

General goals with details and post-production include the following:

Good contrast

Bright whites

Retain color/mood

Avoid deep blacks

Soft but sharp

To get to a professionally produced image in as few clicks as possible, we recommend using presets like our Lightroom Presets CC V1.1 (For Lightroom 5, 6, & Classic). While you may have or prefer to use other presets, the same post-processing fundamentals and principles outlined in this chapter will still apply.

It’s important to set the correct color temperature when adjusting your image in post. You may brighten the image, add a bit of contrast or lift some shadows and call it done, but if the colors are off, and the whites are white (for example), you will have missed the goal of retaining the color in the image. You can analyze the histogram when adding brightness to take the whites to a truer shade of white rather than gray, and then use the white balance tool to dial in the correct color temperature and tint.